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Show A-2 The Park Record The Park Record. Serving Summit County since 1880 The Park Record, Park City’s No. 1 source for local news, opinion and advertising, is available for home delivery in Summit, Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis and Utah counties. Single copies are also available at 116 locations throughout Park City, Heber City, Summit County and Salt Lake City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES In Summit County (home delivery): $56 per year (includes Sunday editions of The Salt Lake Tribune) Outside Summit County (home delivery available in Wasatch, Salt Lake, Davis, Weber and Utah counties; all other addresses will be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service): $80 per year To subscribe please call 435–649– 9014 or visit www.parkrecord.com and click the Subscribe link in the Reader Tools section of the toolbar at the bottom of the page. To report a missing paper, please call 801–204–6100. 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No portion may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the managing editor or publisher. The Park Record (USPS 378-730) (ISSN 0745-9483) is published twice weekly by Wasatch Mountain News Media Co., 1670 Bonanza Drive, Park City, UT 84060. Periodicals postage paid at Salt Lake City, Utah, 84199-9655 and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Park Record, P.O. Box 3688, Park City, UT84060. Entered as second-class matter, May 25, 1977, at the Post Office in Park City, Utah, 84060 under the Act of March 3, 1897. Subscription rates are: $56 within Summit county, $80 outside of Summit County, Utah. Subscriptions are transferable: $5 cancellation fee. Phone: 435–649–9014 Fax: 435–649–4942 Email: circulation@parkrecord.com Continued from A-1 Wheaton will depart Wheaton, meanwhile, led Deer Valley through the Winter Olympics. The resort hosted skiing and freestyle skiing events in 2002. The venue, just outside Snow Park Lodge, was widely praised and, since then, has been a regular stop on the World Cup circuit and has hosted world freestyle championships. Wheaton, 66 and a Woodland resident, started at Deer Valley a few months before the resort debuted in late 1981. He was hired as a ski instructor but became the building maintenance manager before ever beginning to teach skiing at Deer Valley. He rose through the ranks, holding posts like the equipment operations and maintenance manager as well as the director of mountain operations before being named the general manager, the top staff position, in 1988. He was named president and chief operating officer when Alterra Mountain Company acquired Deer Valley in October of 2017 from co-owners Royal Street Corporation and Red Gables Corporation. Royal Street Continued from A-1 Roadwork commences just asking everyone to continue to be patient and to allow yourself a little extra time. I don’t think the detour will take a whole lot of extra time, but just allow a few extra minutes.” The projects are part of a series of improvements that the county has planned for the frontage road between Landmark Drive and Quarry Village. Since early June, crews have been working to widen the road while simultaneously constructing a remote parking lot across from Ecker Hill Middle School. The lot will accommodate about 450 spaces and include a transit connection to the Kimball Junction transit center. Traffic is currently detouring through the remote parking lot. Construction of a pedestrian underpass is also included in the project and will be complete around the same time as the rest of the improvements. The underpass will allow people to walk beneath Kilby Road between the parking lot and Ecker Hill Middle School. Workers will begin paving Kilby Road on Monday, as well as two new roundabouts that will be placed in front of the park-and-ride lot and the middle school. The paving in front of the middle school is scheduled to be complete as soon as the first walls of the pedestrian crossing are in place. Flagging operations will continue throughout the days. “Traffic will be flowing as normal except drivers will be going through a roundabout instead of a stop sign,” Radke said. “They should be finished paving Kilby Road by Saturday (Aug. 25) and finish the first lift of paving in front of the school on Tuesday/ Wednesday so that school traffic can fully utilize the road. They will still Published every Wednesday and Saturday Direct Importer of the World’s Finest Rugs A t t h e H i s t o r i c Vi l l a T h e a t r e 3092 So. Highland Dr., Salt Lake City (801)484-6364 888.445.RUGS (7847) Mon.-Sat. 10 am to 6 pm Corporation is the firm once led by the late Deer Valley founder Edgar Stern while Roger Penske leads Red Gables Corporation. Stern’s influence on Deer Valley was of outsized significance as he is credited with instilling a dedication to the top-tier customer service that many see as defining the resort. Wheaton said Stern’s lessons continue to guide the staffers. He said Deer Valley looks at staff positions through the experience of resort guests. Wheaton described the staffers at Deer Valley as key to the overall success over the years. “It has always been a focus to attract and retain people with top-notch skills,” Wheaton said. Wheaton will become a senior strategic advisor to the Alterra Mountain Company board of directors when he leaves the Deer Valley post. It is an open-ended post that is expected to provide Wheaton the opportunity to help craft a vision for a firm that rapidly became one of the top players in the ski industry. Alterra Mountain Company appointed Todd Shallan as the successor president and chief operating officer at Deer Valley. He is scheduled to start at Deer Valley on Sept. 24, working with Wheaton through his departure. Shallan has a background in the hotel industry and once worked for KSL Capital Partners. Alterra Mountain Company was created through a joint venture between KSL Capital Partners and Henry Crown and Company affiliates. be working on the rest of the park and ride, as well as everything else though mid-October.” Melinda Colton, director of communications for the Park City School District, said the construction will effect “virtually every bus in our district.” She said students are bused from all over the district to the middle school and parents who take their kids to school commute from different portions of the Park City area. Congestion on Kilby Road during drop-off and pick-up times at the school is often severe even under regular circumstances. “This will be a test of patience for all of us, especially our bus drivers and parents,” she said. “Summit County is doing all they can to help us mitigate all the issues. We would ask that parents plan their schedules accordingly because this will be inconvenient. But, keep in mind this is meant to improve traffic in that area.” Colton said the closure and delays will likely cause buses to run late for pickups and drop offs during the first few days of school. Classes start on Thursday for elementary and secondary students. Kindergarten begins on Aug. 27. “It’s just one of those things we will have to deal with and we will do the best we can,” she said. “We realize it will be inconvenient and we apologize for that. If students do not take the bus, whichever direction parents come from it will be a construction area. Just leave early so they are not rushed because that in turn makes our students anxious.” The Kilby Road improvements are scheduled to be complete around the middle of October. Express transit operations from the remote lot will begin when Park City Transit’s winter service change takes place in mid-November, according to an email from Krachel Murdock, the county’s spokeswoman. She said the Kimball Junction West route, which serves Tanger Outlets and Pinebrook, among others, will include the remote lot and may begin as soon as the parkand-ride is operational. To see a map of the detour route, visit parkrecord.com. Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, August 18-21, 2018 School taxes increase, causing some worries District leaders hear concerns about the staffing additions CAROLYN WEBBER ALDER The Park Record A larger tax bill will be coming to residents in Park City School District boundaries. The Park City Board of Education unanimously voted during a Truth-in-Taxation meeting on Tuesday night to increase the local property tax rate by 16.8 percent, despite some concerns from constituents about the increasing expenditures of the district. The increase is expected to generate about $5.6 million annually, said Todd Hauber, business administrator for the district. According to a public notice from the district, a primary homeowner will pay an additional $188.65 on a residence with a market value of $893,079, the average price of a primary home in the district boundaries. The owner of a vacation home or business with the same value will pay an additional $343. The increased revenue from the district’s tax increase will cover the $7,000 boost in teacher salaries and benefits the Board approved in May of 2017, said Andrew Caplan, president of the Board. The Board also recently raised the salary of the superintendent position from $170,000 to $235,000. Caplan previously stated that the funds will also pay for the salaries and benefits of four new assistant principals at the secondary schools and four interventionists at the elementary schools. The district announced last month that it plans to hire a deputy superintendent as well. Community member Jim Tedford said during the meeting that it was “hard to justify” adding the positions when the student population has increased minimally in the last few years. According to data from the district’s budget overview, enrollment in the district has increased from 4,788 in 2014 to a projected 4,861 this up- Continued from A-1 Treasure put to voters addition. He explained Utah Open Lands needs to raise $3 million in addition to the $3 million that voters will decide. The mayor and City Council reviewed the ballot measure language as well. They made a minor edit by requesting the word “trailhead” be added to language regarding parking improvements. A bond would be repaid over a 16-year period if voters approve the ballot measure. Someone owning a residence classified as primary and valued at $800,000 would pay an estimated additional $194 annually. Someone owning a commercial property or a vacation home would pay an estimated additional $353 each year. The City Council received brief coming school year. Steve Joyce, a member of the Park City Council, said during the meeting that in the last five years, the hiring of full-time positions has outpaced student growth. “You, the school board in general, have hired a lot of people in our area that has almost no growth at all for students,” he said. “At some point that kind of has to quit, and I hope that’s soon.” Andrew Caplan, president of the Board, responded by saying the population has grown, and so has the expectations for the district. He said that teachers are asked to take on more than what was expected of them in the past, including promoting mental health and social equity in the schools. He said many community members frequently ask for more services in the schools, especially in special education and counseling. He acknowledged that the district has heavily invested in mental health, and he said the decision to use tax dollars to fund programs and new positions was not taken lightly. “We want to fulfill the wishes of our constituents but, at the same time, we don’t want to have taxes get out of control,” he said after the meeting. “That is the balance we are trying to find, and I think we found that this year.” Other individuals, such as Mark Parker, an English teacher at Treasure Mountain Junior High, came to the meeting as representatives of the Park City Education Association to say it supports the tax increase and is happy to see the direction the district is going, particularly with regards to compensation of teachers. Caplan said after the meeting that the Board appreciated the feedback, and it recognizes people’s concerns. Many have indicated that the Board should tighten its purse strings, particularly if it plans on asking for more funding down the road for master planning projects, potentially in the form of a large bond. But Caplan said the Board will continue to listen to the wants and needs of the community and determine next steps based on the feedback. comments from ballot measure supporters during a hearing prior to the vote. Niels Vernegaard, an Old Town resident who opposes the Treasure development proposal, thanked the elected officials for the efforts to drop the figure to under $50 million. The Treasure development rights date to an overall 1980s approval involving the acreage City Hall now wants to acquire and nearby parcels of land. The other parcels were developed over the intervening years, but the bulk of the development rights are attached to the Treasure land itself. The Treasure partnership of the Sweeney family and a firm called Park City II, LLC for more than a decade pursued a project of approximately 1 million square feet of residences, commercial spaces and convention area. The opponents seized on issues like the traffic the project would generate on streets like Lowell Avenue and Empire Avenue, the size of the buildings and the impacts of construction. Park City leaders in late 2017 were in negotiations with the Treasure partnership about some sort of conservation deal before reaching the $64 million deal in January. |